The Consilium Community

It was late spring, and my young daughter, Sheridan, and I decided to plan some special mother-daughter activities to share. With a little trepidation, I allowed her to adopt a caterpillar at a local birdseed store as one way to make a memory. Sheridan, notorious for...

When the first bell rings at 7:55, the door swings open, and my seventh graders start streaming in, pulling chairs off the tables, plopping backpacks on the floor, high-fiving one another. I greet them as they come in and they chatter while I take attendance. After...

Have you noticed that the older we become, the more our experiences inform our faith and beliefs? As older women, many of us have deep wells of hard-earned wisdom from which we draw. Maybe, like me, you have noticed how the changing political tide has unearthed some...

Swimsuit season is around the corner. Maybe that’s not the opening sentence you’d expect in a blog post about prayer — though wouldn’t it be nice if confessing those extra pounds could remove them as far as the east is from the west? Yeah. Not happening. As I was...

Behold, all souls are mine… Ezekiel 18:4 NIV In one year, six months apart, I nearly died and did die. I survived a pancreatic attack. The doctors came in the hospital and gravely gave me the bad news: "Because of your damaged gallbladder, your pancreas has misfired,...

After Daddy left Mama and us kids, Mama had no choice but to get a license, somehow obtain a beat up old car and get a job. She had a focused purpose. That purpose was to provide for and raise those of her brood of seven kids that were still at home. She was focused...

Instead of a New Years resolution of promises to eat healthier or exercise that I’d never make good on. The past few years I’ve resolved to focus on one insightful word that I could cling to for a year. I wanted a “spiritual” word; one that’s been invisible from my...

My heart ached at the thought of it. God couldn’t possibly be calling us to leave our church of 17 years. All our friends were there. We did a lot of life together - Bible studies, mission trips, Sunday School. We held each other up during seasons of devastating loss...

Doc helped me to clean the kitchen before we jumped in the car to get a few items from the drugstore. Walking out of the door, I grabbed the bag of overstuffed garbage, hung it on the side mirror of my car, as we usually do, and drove down the long driveway to our...